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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Calling down the thunder

“The fightin’s commenced. Get to fighting or get out of the
way”
Wyatt Earp

This fourth week of the 63rd session of the
Montana Legislature has gotten off to a rocky start. Political games with
highly controversial bills being scheduled hastily so opposition can’t organize
easily; shenanigans with secret meetings to try and carve out our access
funding for personal and partisan gain; and the return of the anti-public
hunter bills like SB 151 are all bubbling. Throw in a little insult of
forcing hunters to pay for brucellosis testing, mandates for test and slaughter
of elk and stripping hunting privileges away for three years if you
accidentally walk on some private ground and you have what is shaping up to be
a banner session.

Groups like the United Property Owners of Montana are
walking the halls with their lobbyists talking about test and slaughter of elk
and transferable licenses for landowners while other groups like Sportsmen for
Fish and Wildlife try desperately to pass bad legislation that would crater
Montana’s ability to hunt wolves.

If you thought 2011 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Here’s
the list of bills related just to Fish and Wildlife issues. It’s only 139
strong. Only 48 of those have been introduced now, but the doozies are still
coming:

And then there’s HB 249 and SB 143 – If you want to hunt
Wild Buffalo, you can forget it if these bills pass. HB 249 erases 120 years of
conservation ethic by allowing landowners to decide if wild bison live or die in
the Gardiner Basin. SB 143 seeks to eliminate any bison in the state of Montana
other than those privately held. That’s right – kill ‘em all and screw the rest
of you. I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised that this war on
wildlife and the resident hunter is back in full force. This session went from
Kumbaya to all out war over the course of a weekend.

The honeymoon is over, if there ever was one. Batcrap crazy
has left the room and buffalo chip nuts has entered. Gear up folks. One thing
we like that might see the light of day is a bi-partisan bill to address corner
crossing. This bill put two legislators
together who probably don’t agree on anything else, Hellgate Hunters and
Anglers member Rep. Ellie Hill (D-Missoula) and Rep. Krayton Kerns (R-Laurel). Their bill would make it legal to cross from
checker boarded public land to public land, opening up 1.5 million acrs of
inaccessible public land. Sign
the petition here.

We all have the responsibility to carry on the legacy set in
place over a 150 years ago. Many have
come before us to protect our heritage it’ our turn to do our part. Sign up for
the Bully Nation and get those emails, phone calls coming in. Take a sick
day and come testify. Stand up for Montana’s wildlife and your opportunity to
hunt & fish.